When government agencies cloak arms exports to Israel in secrecy, we have a moral and legal right to prevent their damage

During the night of January 17 2009, the last day of the Israeli attack on Gaza, six peace activists climbed the fence of a Brighton arms factory EDO MBM. Entering through broken windows and wielding hammers, they systematically smashed computers and machinery, and destroyed records. Hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of damage was caused. They then lay down on the floor and waited to be arrested. Prior to the action, the six recorded their motivation in a video briefing. In the words of one protester, Elijah Smith:

"I don't feel I'm going to do anything illegal tonight, but I'm going to go into an arms factory and smash it up to the best of my ability so that it cannot actually work or produce munitions ... [which] have been provided to the Israeli army."

Four of the six are now out on strict bail conditions, while two, including Elijah Smith, are on remand in Lewes prison. While property was damaged, their actions involved no violence to persons.

What would make someone smash up a factory on an industrial estate and then wait calmly to be taken into custody? Perhaps a belief that the only way to prevent atrocity is not to politely petition the arms traders but to actively disarm them. And perhaps a knowledge that while our government may indulge in public handwringing over civilian casualties, it veils in secrecy a highly profitable arms supply industry to Israel.

One of the mainstays of this new movement is Smash EDO, a Brighton-based campaign against local arms manufacturers. We campaign under the slogan "Every bomb that is dropped, every bullet that is fired in the name of this war of terror has to be made somewhere, and wherever it is, it can be resisted." We aim to shut EDO MBM's factory down or see it converted to civilian production. We are determined to be there until they're not.

In Brighton, rallies against the outbreak of the Iraq war saw thousands on the streets, expressing anger, even against the New Labour-led council. Ironically, the day before the EDO MBM factory was broken into, Brighton council censored a motion of condemnation (jpg) against EDO MBM's supplies of components to Israel tabled by the Green party.

The truth, we submit, is that the UK government is hiding the corporate sources of its multimillion-pound supply of components to the Israeli armed forces, and now we believe that the information commissioner has endorsed this secrecy. On December 18 2008, an FOI complaint against the Department of Business concerning a request for details (or, at least, a bare confirmation or denial) of the existence of ITT-EDO MBM export licences for Israel was not upheld by the commissioner (pdf), because he decided to give more weight to government arguments that the public interest in business confidentiality was greater than that of the public interest in transparency and accountability of the UK arms trade. The government line (supported by the information commissioner) is that the revelation of where arms companies send their components is information that might provoke "pressure groups" to engage in direct action, and the arms maker's business and end user's military capacity could be adversely affected. Business interest trumps democratic process every time.

Whatever the government says or does, we will continue to take action against this factory. Since the campaign began in 2004, protesters have shrugged off an attempt to restrict their rights with an injunction and faced down numerous attempts by Sussex police to stifle protests. To date, there have been over 80 arrests, yet only a handful of convictions. Numerous court cases have collapsed as the Crown Prosecution Service has decided "sensitive" information about the relationship between the police and the firm should not be made public. A deputy district judge had ruled that the information did not deserve public interest immunity and, from that point on, the cases began dropping in their dozens to keep this information secret.

Even without reference to the civilian casualties and widespread destruction caused by Israel's recent assault on Gaza, which may be investigated as a war crime, those six people who decided on January 17 2009 to "decommission" the factory in Brighton had, and others will continue to have, a statutory "lawful excuse" defence for such action under Section 5 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971. Damage to property is lawful if carried out in an honest belief that it is preventing greater damage; this defence has been accepted by a jury in Belfast in the case of the "Raytheon nine", and more recently by a jury in Maidstone in the prosecution of climate change protesters at Kingsnorth power station.

As the EDO decommissioners will argue in court, when elected representatives, governments and international law fail to act in the wider public interest of international security and justice, it is up to individuals to take a direct role in preventing the death and destruction. The lives, security and property of those who are struck down by armaments made in the UK are worth no less than our lives, security or property.

Thanks to Andrew Beckett and The Guardian for covering this document. Reprint rights remain with the aforementioned.